5% Of New Super Mario Bros. 2 Players In Japan Bought The Download Version

Nintendo recently released New Super Mario Bros. 2 and a successor to the Brain Age series, titled Demon Training, in Japan. The two games represent the first Nintendo titles that were released both at retail stores and on Nintendo’s digital download games store, the Nintendo eShop, at the same time.

Speaking with the Wall Street Journal, Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata, has shared a few hints regarding how download sales of the two games have been going.

New Super Mario Bros. 2, Iwata reveals, has been brought primarily at retail, with only 5% of consumers opting to buy a download version of the game. Demon Training, on the other hand, saw 20% of consumers buy the download version.

Iwata theorizes that Demon Training has higher download sales because of its nature of being a puzzle game that you play everyday, which likely made users want to have it on them at all times without requiring to carry an additional cartridge around.

New Super Mario Bros. 2 was released in Europe earlier today, and will be released in North America this weekend on August 19th. As with Japan, the game will be launched simultaneously at both a retail and on the Nintendo eShop.

I guess gamers really do prefer physical. As long as there is the option for both retail and digital, everyone is happy.

http://wiredjungle.wordpress.com/ DrakosAmatras

Personally, I’d like to see digital sales become more widespread in Japan, just out of pure interest in how it’ll affect the current game distribution systems.

And I prefer physical or digital depending on how much load/read speed will yield from either, and how much each specific game needs. If a game is really data-heavy – a photorealistic PS3 sandbox game, for example – I notice that it benefits a bit more from running from the HDD directly.

http://www.siliconera.com/ Ishaan

I don’t think it’s gamers in this case, as much as it is that a large portion of the audience NSMB2 is directed at simply isn’t tech savvy enough or doesn’t care enough about the convenience of downloadable games.

On the other hand, Demon Training, which is targeted at a specific audience, and is the kind of game that would be more convenient as a download, is showing a much higher download rate.

It should be interesting to see how the US and European percentages compare. Hopefully, we’ll receive some word of that in their next earnings report. I’m very curious to see, as this is the first time a first-party publisher is willing to be forthcoming about download sales.

SirRichard

I’m going to predict that the digital sales aren’t going to be very good; at least here in the UK, there’s a ridiculous price bump for the first few games. NSMB2 itself is £40 as opposed to £30 at retail, for instance.

I’m not sure if that’s the same throughout Europe or elsewhere, but here Nintendo basically shot their download service in the foot before it got out of the gate.

Ah yeah, I’ve been hearing that. I guess big releases on the eShop are treated just as they are on Steam. Full retail price, and they’ll remain that way for a long time.

Aoshi00

The problem might be retail and digital are priced the same too, in some case retail being even cheaper than digital’s MSRP which never drops.. there’s really not much incentive to download in terms of price (Club Ninty gives double the coins but still).. if digital were say 1,000 yen cheaper, maybe more people would think about forgoing the case/cartridge.. also many Jpn gamers do like to resell their games back to the stores once they’re done, there’s a big market to get almost like new used games for much cheaper..

My Verizon DSL connection is slow (upgrading to cable over the weekend), so downloading would take a while, but my copy from Newegg would arrive tmw probably :) No way I’m skipping the yellow case :)

W/ Demon Training, it feels more like a puzzle game App you d/l on a phone as time killer..

But Zero escape and Castlevania are more immediate needs for my 3DS but they wont be out till october and december respectively and I need to take a better look at that Code of Princess game from Atlus

James Beatty

Code of princess is basically guardian heroes, but with more boobs. Does that sound like something you would like? If so, go buy it

And I still want the Cobalt Blue Fire Emblem 3DS XD I hope they release it over here next year

https://twitter.com/maxiburger maxiburger

I wonder if this isn’t actually an age issue. I can imagine Mario appealing to an averagely younger audience in Japan than Demon Training. And wiring money via the internet is much easier for adults than it is for children. Granted, you could just as well buy a 3DS points card in a retail store even as a kid, but when you’re already going to that store why don’t you just buy that game you want there?

http://www.siliconera.com/ Ishaan

Yep, this is another factor that comes into play for sure.

http://twitter.com/EdgeKun Ed Powell

Here’s to hoping this doesn’t scare Nintendo from putting more games up digitally. I can understand the appeal of having the physical cart, but I was happy to see Nintendo trying out this release method.

http://www.siliconera.com/ Ishaan

Iwata seems happy with the figures. He said they felt the download initiative was off to a decent start.

JMaster3000

Well if the digital download would be cheaper more people would buy it.

http://twitter.com/Romangelo Román Monterossa

“2 Players In Japan Bought The Download Version” LOL I misread this.

JMaster3000

eShops say that it was 236 downloaded in Europe
I wont buy it from eShop cause i got a 20 Euro discount in Gamestop ^^

https://twitter.com/kcgst Karu

I´m still waiting for the announcement that it will be available in latin america digitally some day , but i guess that won´t happen anytime soon :/

http://twitter.com/banballow Yanya

Of course, since NSMB2 has sold a little over 8 times as many copies as Demon Training, its 5% digital sellthrough is still nearly double Demon Training’s 20% digital sellthrough.

csharpz12

When I noticed that on Eshop that this game was £39.99 and that the retail was £29.99, I instantly got the retail. I mean, come on Nintendo? You are losing digital sales if you keep doing that!

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